


The Time Sammy Was the Statue of Liberty

by smolstiel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel True Forms, Dean in Hell, Gen, Post-Hell Dean Winchester, Post-Hell Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester in Lucifer's Cage, Schmoopy Metaphysical Stuff, Souls, True Forms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 17:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11925594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolstiel/pseuds/smolstiel
Summary: You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body. — C.S. Lewis





	The Time Sammy Was the Statue of Liberty

_You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body. — C.S. Lewis_

...

Sam was watching him, cautious and treading lightly, and Dean was getting more wary by the second. 

“What do you mean you have a trueform?” Dean demanded. “Like an angel?” 

Sam nodded. “Yeah. Like an angel.” He paused. “Cas said his was the size of the Chrysler building.”  

He snorted. Took a swig of beer. Swallowed to say, “Yeah, you gonna tell me you're the size of the Empire State?” He looked back to see Sam studying him with an expression that scared him. 

“Actually, I’m a lot smaller than that,” Sam said casually. “But, basically, yeah. That's exactly what I'm saying.” 

He stared. “Run that by me again.” 

Sam chuckled, like he was finding some kind of ironic humor in the whole situation. Dean was having none of it, and his glare said so. That shut Sam right up. He cleared his throat. “So when I was downstairs, with Lucifer, I had a body for the first part. And then my body was taken back.” 

Dean had to look away at that, wash away the images of his soulless brother with another swallow of beer. “Yeah? And then what?” 

“And then I was a soul. Just a soul. No body to give it shape. So eventually it sort of, made its own shape.” He gestured, as if trying to sketch it out for him. “It was still vaguely human-shaped, as far as I could tell, but I was a lot bigger. Taller. Instead of barely being as tall as one of Lucifer’s claws, I could give his entire hand a run for its money.” He gave this little half a laugh, an embarrassed noise, and ducked his head. 

Dean was still trying to work through the mechanics of being tortured by a being so much bigger than you. He couldn't begin to imagine it. He was starting to be glad they were going to stay in hell proper, and not going down to the Cage. Not that he was happy about any of this. 

“I don't know how tall I'll be in comparison to you,” Sam said hesitantly, “but I figured I should warn you. Just in case.” 

He nodded slowly. Stared at the grain in the table. Threw back one last bitter mouthful. Then he slammed the beer onto the table with a hollow clunk, slapped his knees as he rose, and put on a grin to hide all the sudden spin-skid of emotion. “What are we waiting for, Gigantor?” he quipped. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.” 

Sam’s expression crumpled into pure relief, and Dean could only hope he followed through. 

The ritual was terrifyingly easy, considering they were reopening the gate to hell, with the express purpose of never coming out again. Dean drew a couple of sigils in Sam’s blood, which was apparently uniquely tainted enough to pass as that of a Prince of Hell’s. Sam spoke some Latin, the words tripping and lilting off his tongue like he was born to the language. The doors shuddered, and then slowly, silently, swung open. Then, and only then, did Dean feel comfortable looking at Sam and giving him a final nod. 

This was it. They were saying goodbye to their earthly bodies, at the very least. They were leaving them topside on the off chance that they could come back. Bobby would keep them, keep Baby, keep all their stuff. If he didn't hear anything for a week, he was to burn their bodies. A week up top was ten years below. Dean figured if they weren't kicked out or finding their way back by then, they were dead. Or — and this was the part Dean was having trouble with — they would have closed the gates of hell from the inside, leaving them to deal with billions of demons, thousands of hellhounds, and two archangels. 

Anything to save the world, right? 

It wasn't as weird as he’d thought it might be, to cross over. The air rushed over his face like it would from the mouth of a cave, only blisteringly hot with an edge of burning cold. It was a familiar feeling, nearly as comfortable to settle into as his car. His fingers itched for a blade, a whip, a body to tear apart. But he took a deep breath and stilled himself instead. 

There was the strangest feeling of a presence, not just from behind him, but from above him, and Dean had to swallow hard before he turned around. 

Sam was enormous. Redwood legs stretched up to an impossibly wide torso, down to feet the size of cars. He was a near-transparent red, warm and wholesome and all the things hellfire wasn't, glowing brightly enough to cast shadows. A face the size of a house was hovering above like the moon, and he was looking down, straight at Dean with eyes that shone like twin suns. 

“Wow,” Sam said, and the very air thrummed with his voice. “I didn't realize I would be this big.” 

Dean dropped his gaze to one of Sam’s massive, shapeless feet. “Yeah, me neither,” he managed. He had been thinking fifty feet, tops. This was more like two, three hundred. So, not the Chrysler Building. More like the Statue of Liberty. 

It was only then that Dean looked down at himself. He wasn't really surprised to see him looking more or less the same as he had his first time in hell. Same hands, same scars that never showed on his outer layer of skin. Same faint tinge of green, darkened from silvery jade to shadowed emerald. 

Sam had a face he couldn't read. It was big as a billboard, and so far away, and completely and wholly unfamiliar. The suns he had for eyes blinked, and the entirety of Sam was lowering, falling, going to crash in on him and crush him like the damaged thing he was. Just a pinch between two fingers would be more than enough to snuff him out, a bug under the enormity of this light. 

But the light only kneeled, hell itself creaking, shuddering, smoking beneath the knees that smote into its living depths. Then Sam just stared at him. Cocked his head in that little brother way he would have recognized anywhere. 

“Holy shit,” Sam murmured, and the voice cut through the air with enough force that he could feel himself tremble. It wasn't real volume, not down here, but it was power, more power than he’d felt from Alistair, from Lilith, from the very flesh and blood of the walls. “This is so weird.” 

Dean could have fucking said that again, and maybe a third time just for the hell of it, but he didn't manage anything except a strangled yelp as he was suddenly enfolded in warmth and lifted, lifted so quickly he thought he could feel the bottom drop out of his nonexistent stomach. It stopped just as abruptly, and he was looking up at Sam from a much closer view. He looked so much like normal Sam it hurt —the two hairs of stubble he always missed on his jaw, the tiny white scar disappearing into his hairline where a poltergeist had sent him through a window in ninth grade, all right down to the freckle beside his nose. And really, Sam’s eyes were always this bright, if he were honest with himself. 

“Don't worry, Dean,” Sam said, and thank the fucking Lord Almighty he was keeping his voice down, considering Dean was in his fucking hand, feet braced against his lifeline, fists clenched around handfuls of flesh. “I gotcha.” 

And the funny thing was, Dean kinda felt like he did.


End file.
